A Gay/campy chronicling of daily life in NYC,with individual kernels of human truth. copyright 2011 by The Raving Queen
Thursday, September 29, 2016
This Week's Bitch Is Sally Lung, The Murderous, Leprous, Eurasian!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have never seen the 1923 version of Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments," but I am sure it is more interesting than the 1956 version, which drags the Moses story out interminably, while the silent film is two stories in one.
The first is the Moses story. When that is done with the movie moves to the tale of the McTavish family. Now, Mrs. McTavish has two sons, John and Dan, who travel different paths. John follows his mother's teachings, and decides to follow the ten commandments. Dan, on the other hand, does not, because he wants to rise to the top. You know, like Donald Trump!!!!!!!!!!
The story is set in San Francisco, after the earthquake, and before MGM recreated it, but there is plenty of crash and burn here, girls! Dan builds a cathedral with defective material to cut cost, and the whole thing comes crashing down, just happening to kill his mother!
As if things could not get worse--and they do--for distraction, he has succumbed to sexual addiction and enslavement with a drug ridden mistress named Sally Lung who is, of all things, a Eurasian!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Her character here was self prophesy; years later, she herself would die of a heroin overdose, in 1961!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This was a time when the only work Asians could get were as coolie extras in movies like "The Good Earth." Consider the two leads were played, in that, by Paul Muni and Luise Rainer. And Charley Grapewin--Uncle Henry in "The Wizard Of Oz"--played a China man. And how about the brilliance of Myrna Loy, as the malevolent daughter, in "The Mask Of Fu Manchu??????????" As for Charles Middleton, as Ming, The Merciless, in "Flash Gordon," he looks like he just walked off the set of an Oriental spectacular!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
It wasn't till the Civil Rights movement of the Sixties, that Chinese were elevated to servants, while Blacks were recognized as genuine actors. Ah, the political evolution of Hollywood.
Sally Lung was played by Nita Naldi. Not since Zasu Pitts have I heard such names! This slant eyed Miss was a real piece, seducing the bad son, then , at the climactic moment, chortling to him, "I've got leprosy!," meaning he is going to get it, too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What a bitch! Don't you just love her? Despite being fictional, she makes a perfect Bitch Of The Week for this week! So, here she is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
She was beyond help. This was a good twenty years before "The Song Of Bernadette!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
i love reading this article so beautiful!!great job! Fönster – Made by Småland
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThank you so much. As you
will discover BOTW covers
both real and fictitious people.